After a little bit of research, I finally figured out how to create a facebook page that automatically populates articles from a blog. Hence I'm happy to announce the Warpstone Flux Facebook Page. Please like! :)

For those of you with blogs of your own, here's the run down of how to connect your blog to facebook in a similar manner. It all revolves around an RSS application call Graffiti.

(1) On facebook, you will need to set up a facebook page -- use the create fan page link.
For page categories, I selected "brand or product" since there didn't seem to be anything else appropriate. Once the page is set up, edit the user pictures (and so forth).

(2) Visit http://apps.facebook.com/rssgraffiti/ and authorize RSS Graffiti. You will need to select your page to complete the authorization.

(3) Add the feed -- this will be of the format http://warpstoneflux.blogspot.com/rss.xml

(4) You can then head to the filter tab and say how many back posts you want there, and how frequently you want to update. I just went from the start of this year, and twice a day (as I rarely post more frequently than that).

Finally, I will add that you don't have to use your real identity. You can have a screen name in order to manage your blog should you choose. Enjoy!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

This is the fully painted necron scenery piece that was made out of balsa wood. As can be seen, the primary colour is black. For the inset grooves, I base coated with dark green and then used selective highlights (stretching through mid-greens to goblin green and even a splash of scorpion green) to pick out the aetheric energies that may be coruscating through the device.

For scale, one of my Verdus Prime necron warriors is standing next to the finished piece. From a distance, the piece looks very good. Close up, one can still see the wood grain and the un-even hacking of the grooves that I made during the construction phase. For the next one of these that I think I'll try to make, I'll attempt to get the grooves in the balsa wood a bit more smooth. That said, I'm still pleased with the final outcome here and I think it correlates well with other necron scenery that I've discovered during tournaments and travels (etc.).

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Have a read through the entries (below) and then vote using the poll to the right for the "most effective army list that also best articulates the theme" (whatever you interpret that pretty little sentence to mean!). Good luck folks!

Difficult and dangerous terrain? No line of sight ... sounds like an awesome combination!

The melta-toting HQ's and Vets mount up in the Vendettas. The Vendettas use their speed, scout move and the fact they are a skimmer to completely avoid the dangerous terrain and kill vehicles. The Mortars and Griffons sit at the back and use indirect fire to their hearts delight with no comeback. The bulletshield teams prepare to shield.

That's 15 S4 pinning barrage, blasts a turn in dangerous terrain ... I might not kill you, but I can pin you and force more loverly 1's in that heinous terrain. The 6 S6 large template hits even get a reroll to hit firing indirect and blind. how do you say HIT!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Inspired by a combination of themed boards that I've played on and Dawn of War flavour scenery, I decided to attempt constructing my own necron-flavoured scenery. For this project, I have used a block of balsa wood, coupled with a hobby knife and a circular file. All of these are available through regular hobby outlets or even a broad-based hardware store.

The construction is straight-forward: I marked out several lines on the block of balsa wood. Since the wood is very easily indented, I wanted to be sure that I had the angles right before I started cutting. With the lines in place, I simply chopped away a "v"-shaped groove using the hobby knife along the lines, before using the circular file to cut deeper and make a smooth indentation.

That said, for balsa wood, the grains are easier in some directions compared to others. This can be seen in the image, where the lines on one face of the block look aesthetically much better than on the other face. A fully painted image of this block in blacks and greens will be forthcoming...

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Meandering around the local gardening hardware store, I came across some ingredients to help with basing that I wanted to share with you. Most of us are already familiar with some of the alternative basing supplies that can be found in the hardware store (pebbles) or pet store (e.g. aquarium stones) or other things, but I've not come across support for bonsai trees very frequently. So imagine my surprise to find a pot of bonsai dressing pebbles sitting there on the shelf. The pebbles themselves are larger than sand grains, but not as expensive as the slate materials that come with the citadel basing kit. I'll be using them on a number of miniatures in the future!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

A teaser for the completely painted daemon prince I've been working on. The chaos / power sword has been painted in a series of blues - starting with a dark blue base and working upward through to electric blue and off-white blues. I decided that I wanted this power sword to be more like the old chaos swords. Instead of glowing with electrical power, this sword glows with an inner malevolence ready to cause mayhem.

I think this is also the kind of effect that I would be pleased with for painting up some grey knights' ghost knights (see here and here).

Monday, February 13, 2012

This tile is from the Mighty Empires expansion tiles set and is one of two tiles to feature a fork in the river. I wanted to achieve two things with this tile:
(a) creating a more realistic feeling for the river's flow than I had achieved with other river tiles;
(b) giving a go at attempting some vernal flowers in bloom, in contrast to varied greens that I usually mess around with.

For the river, it a basecoat of electric blue was applied followed by a blue wash. Using a fine paintbrush and the basecoat colour, I then picked out where I thought the river might be flowing due to rapids and the convergence of the fork (the river is flowing from 2 streams in to 1 stream; left to right as pictured). A few perpendicular lines to the river's flow achieves a rapids feel in the upper left corner, whilst the confluence of the two rivers is suggested with a "Y"-shaped indulgence just after the fork. A few more subtle wiggles and it was done.

For the vernal feeling, I tried to pick out a few patches of greenery in a variety of reds, yellows and (scorpion) green. Although this didn't turn out exactly how I had pictured in my mind's eye, I don't mind too much. The river certainly is the centrepiece of this tile.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Continuing an earlier theme of images that show scenery that I found inspiring, today is a spider's den in the middle of a crater. A nice mix of pieces from warhammer fantasy including the spider itself!

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Hey Jabberjabber,Just read your post about painting the Black Legion raptor lord. Can I ask you how you get those Black Legion decals to attach on curved surfaces so flat? Mine always seem to stick out!Thanks!

Reply: I'm not sure that I have a good answer, but my way of doing it is to radially slice the decal before application on to the curved surface (in this case, the shoulder pad). By that, I mean that when I cut the decal out from the sheet, I add in a few extra cuts, from the outer rim, to the centre. I don't cut all the way to the centre of the decal, but just enough so that I know it'll curve with the curved surface.

A second alternative is to soften up the decal before application. I'm not too familiar with how this is achieved in a practical sense (heating it up, or perhaps some kind of solvent that partially melts it), but in principle this would also work. Perhaps some of my readers can comment who have more experience with this technique?

The final alternative is to apply a small blob of varnish on to the shoulder pad prior to applying the decal. I tried this with some older models and it worked well. The varnish has the added benefit of ensuring fewer (or zero) air bubbles.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The Raging Inferno! Feb Army List Challenge is still open for entries. Can you design an army list to take on the 1500 point Planetstrike-inspired challenge and be voted the most effective army (that also best articulates the theme) by your peers and enter the Hall of Fame?

Monday, February 6, 2012

The New Year possessed raptor lord is fully painted in the Black Legion colours. I chose the Black Legion for its generic usage as an HQ. Being an ensemble of forces, this legion's colour could readily fit in with my Khorne and Nurgle forces, in a command sense.

For the painting, I started with the reds (torso, head and wings). They were base coated in mechrite red followed by a double wash of black. The colours were then highlighted with progressively lighter tones (blood red through to near orange) to bring out the natural ridges present in the sculpt. The head in particular was pleasing to see finished here as I'd spent extra effort to ensure that ridges along the brows (etc) were properly picked out. The rest of the model was painted in slightly off-black. This was followed by a gentle dusting of grey/black mixture before washing it back down with black to blend it all together. The ridges of the armour and the knee-caps were picked out with shining gold (I didn't really want to bother with none-metallic metallics here). The weaponry was given a drybrushing of boltgun metal, before I started to pick out the power maul/mace. I opted here to attempt an inverse painting (partly in response to the great feedback from ghost knight test painting I received). Following a basecoat of white, I steadily picked out the darker bits with deepening blues; starting with electric blue and working my way through ultramarine blue to a dark blue on the outermost edges. To create a feeling of glow, I highlighted selected portions of the arm that I thought might be highlighted by the glow from the maul -- in particular: parts of the handle of the weapon, parts of the arm itself and the glove especially. Perhaps part of the inner wing should have also got a little shine, but I didn't go that far.

The only thing left to do is to base this guy up to finish him off. I might try one of the back2basix temple bases I painted up a while back.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

A skull spews forth a waterfall of blood in to a pool collecting at the base of an arcane ruins.
I found this piece of scenery inspiring and hope that you do as well. All credit to the creators (i.e. not me).

Friday, February 3, 2012

The latest batch of FAQs from Games Workshop haven't gone in favour of the chaos space marines, it seems.

For chaos space marines, the Warptime ability that is (was...) often interpreted as meaning one can re-roll failed to hit and to wound rolls as you choose has now been downgraded to re-rolling everything or nothing. In my opinion, this means the points cost just got a little too steep to be competitive (perhaps). So for my daemon princes of Nurgle, its back to doom bolt and Nurgle's Rot methinks.

Lash of Submission also suffers: a roll to hit is now required. That also reduces the points spent to benefit ratio.

Other changes in the FAQ are simply clarifications, mostly devoted to the character HQs and their weapons. No really surprises, but Kharn with a unit now prevents them from being affected by the Lash of Submission (for instance).

In common with the Daemons FAQ (for chaos spawn), the chaos marines FAQ now makes it clear that summoned daemons (e.g. greater daemons) that come on to the board where there isn't sufficient space still come on to the board and the other miniatures must make way.

Tzeentch's faithful rubric marines also suffer: without a sorcerer they may not be able to move if under the influence of a power that reduces the number of die they roll for movement.

Interestingly, Dreadnought fire frenzy line-of-sight arcs are now specified as 45 deg to the front of the walker. This makes the walker more tempting to take in regular armies for me.

Overall, some neutral changes, but mostly the FAQ reduces the points cost to benefit ratio for what originally was a sub-optimal codex. But to my Blood Ravens, Black Templar (etc.) friends: it's not going to help you :P

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Welcome to the first Army List Challenge of 2012. If you've not had a go at these before, the idea is to design a themed army list from the codex of your choice to take on a specific challenge.

This month's challenge is inspired by one of the missions in Planetstrike (you remember that 40k expansion, right? the one where daemons are awesome as they can charge on the turn they appear?). The game itself will be played using regular 40k rules, using killpoints to determine the victor (explicitly: its an annihilation mission, with spearhead/table quarters deployment) with the following amendments.

(a) The battlefield that you are fighting over is a raging inferno. All difficult terrain (of which there is a fair bit) is treated as being both dangerous and difficult terrain (everything is on fire!). All of the difficult terrain blocks line of sight through it (there's lots of thick, black, acrid smoke coming out of it!). There is, however, a singular stronghold on the battlefield - a robust bastion that has withstood the test of time and is not subjected to this rule. Naturally, said bastion is situated in the centre of the battlefield. Controlling this bastion is worth two further killpoints in the final analysis for the controlling player.

(b) Additionally, at the start of each player turn, that player may launch two firestorm (infinite range, S9, AP3, Ordnance 1, Barrage) weapons. It is going to be a true raging inferno...

Rules

(1) Design a 1500 points army list from any codex to take on this challenge.

(2) Post your army lists as a comment to this posting and suggest why the army list is effective and themed to the scenario.
(3) Entries close at 01:00 GMT on Feb 14th.

(4) On that same day, I'll open a poll for Warpstone Flux readers to judge which army list they consider to be the "most effective army list that also best articulates the theme" (whatever readers interpret that to mean) out of all entrants.

(5) The winner will be tallied and announced on Feb 21st (and entered in to the hall of fame!).

(6) One entry per person please.

Remember that there are no prizes for these contests, beyond kudos, honour and entry in to the hall of fame.

WIP-REVIEW: More scenery for Robotech!
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First update of this year!
I've been building the scenery sets from 4Ground I have so far:
Primera actualización del año!
He estado armando los sets de escen...

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This blog is in no way official or endorsed by Games Workshop Limited. Nor is it official or endorsed by any other company that may be mentioned. All photographs, images and paint-work that are posted are originals by the author unless indicated otherwise. The miniatures, subject matter and sculpts used are copyrighted by Games Workshop Limited and other companies. The full disclaimer is here.

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